Daily Report: The Testing Labs of Malware

By Jim Kerstetter

July 3, 2017

When hackers stole $81 million from a bank in Bangladesh last year, fingers were eventually pointed at North Korea. The accusation indicated that North Korea’s hackers appeared willing to go after targets — a bank in a developing economy hardly considered a big player in international politics — not normally associated with nation-state cyberattacks.

The breach was also evidence that if you want to try out a new attack, you don’t start on Wall Street or Western Europe. Instead, you choose something in an economy without the robust defenses of, say, Citibank. As Sheera Frenkel reports, what intrigued security researchers about the attack was that its target was the Bank of Bangladesh’s access to an electronic banking system called Swift. It is used throughout the world to transfer billions of dollars among banks. Learning how to get access to a bank’s Swift account could lead to a heist of billions from the global banking system.

As developing economies become more digital, they are proving to be enticing targets. Is there as much money in a bank or business in Bangladesh compared with one in London? Of course not, but there is plenty.

Compare a cyberattack to a play: Do you try out new material on Broadway, or do you work out the kinks in a smaller market before you appear before those tough New York crowds? For hackers, the answer is easy.

Programming note: The Daily Report will take a break for the Fourth of July holiday. We will return on Wednesday.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated the findings of security researchers who looked into the cyberattack on the Bank of Bangladesh last year. The target of the attack was the bank’s access to Swift, an electronic banking system; the attack did not undermine the Swift system itself.